Amjad Nasser (1955-2019) was born in Al-Turra, Jordan, and worked as a journalist in Beirut and Cyprus. A major force in contemporary Arab writing, he had eight collections of poetry, two books of travel writing and two novels published. Two collections of his poetry have appeared in English, Shepherd of Solitude: Selected Poems (Banipal, 2009), translated by Khaled Mattawa, and A Map of Signs and Scents (Northwestern, 2016), translated by Fady Joudah and Khaled Mattawa. His novel, first published in Arabic in 2011, appeared in English, translated by Jonathan Wright, as Land of No Rain (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2014). In the same year, he was invited to inaugurate New York University’s Gallatin Global Writers series but was denied entry to the United States by the Department of Homeland Security amid vociferous protest from PEN America Center and other organisations. He died in October 2019.

To read a tribute to Amjad Nasser by Banipal magazine click here.